Surveillance Seeks To Squelch Dissent

January 22, 2006|Julius Sippen Delray Beach

Bob Herbert's column, "The lawbreaker in the Oval Office," was great.

However, articles last month point out that it is not just the National Security Agency spying on citizens. It is also the FBI and the Pentagon's 902nd Military Intelligence Unit spying on peace demonstrators, poverty agencies, Quakers and others who have no overseas connections at all -- and without warrants.

It seems the administration and the Pentagon are trying to repeat the McCarthy and Vietnam War eras in an attempt to intimidate dissenters exercising their right to freedom of association and free speech. The Army is defending its turf, and the administration wants unlimited power. The money (ours) spent on this is bankrupting the country.

Our youngsters are being used as cannon fodder smack in the middle of a civil war, defending theocrats who would enslave women, against a mixed bag of dissenters and people who bomb women and children. (Our army does that, too, but calls it "collateral damage.")

Our presence is inflaming the situation. This war was unjustified from the outset. Rep. John Murtha is right. And those of us opposing this war "shall not be moved!"